


those who fight monsters

by Zerrat



Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Monster Hunting, Angst, Dark, F/F, Femslash, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Monsters, Supernatural Elements, Werewolves, fangst is a real genre that needs to be more common
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 01:23:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zerrat/pseuds/Zerrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Werewolf/Supernatural AU. Following a relocation to an isolated township, a happy future turns to dust in Fang's hands. Alone and grieving, angry and despairing, she's not about to let someone - or some<i>thing</i> - get away with the murder of her most precious person. Even if that means she needs to call in a favour from an old friend...</p>
            </blockquote>





	those who fight monsters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Avatar_of_Ragnarok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avatar_of_Ragnarok/gifts).



> Please note the archive warnings before diving in. 
> 
> For Fangupup/Avatar_of_Ragnarok, who loves werewolves and monsters of every variety.

In the months following Fang's wedding to her long-time girlfriend, Vanille, things had been more than good. 

Things were hardly _perfect_ , that much had to be stressed. They still had their fair share of petty bickering and explosive arguments - if they'd stopped all that just because of a simple ceremony on Oerba's beach, Fang would have been a little worried. 

On the whole, though, Fang was proud to say that she'd shown that quiet, cynical voice at the back of her head a thing or two. Her relationship with Vanille had only grown stronger, and it was finally looking like smooth sailing ahead.

The only major bump so far had been their - admittedly sudden - relocation to the northerly township of Issena. The area was more than a few hours travel from their long-time home in Oerba, and when Fang had been offered a promotion to act as the town's assistant beast master - permanent appointment subject to sorting out the mess of things the last assistant had made - things had... Well, they'd gotten very rocky, very quickly. Vanille had been against the move and had really dug her heels in over the matter. 

It had taken Fang a few nights and a hell of a lot of sweet-talk to convince Vanille that the change of scenery would be worth the trouble. 

"It doesn't need to be forever, you know," Fang had said, from across their tiny dinner table in Oerba. Things had been stonily quiet for the few hours since she'd gotten home, and frankly she was eager to get things smoothed over. She reached out to grasp one of Vanille's hands in both of her own, and was relieved when the gesture wasn't rejected. "Once we're settled in and I've sorted their little beast problems, the sky's the limit on where we can go after that."

After a long few moments of tense, conflicted silence as Vanille had searched Fang's eyes, she had finally smiled. The expression had looked a little strained, but when Vanille placed her other hand over Fang's and squeezed, her answer was clear. 

"I just want you to be happy, Fang," Vanille had told her with a nod, and that had settled things. 

A week later, they'd packed up all of their belongings from their tiny personal rooms in Oerba, put it all in the transport that Fang had hired, and had set out. Oerba had vanished into the distance as they set out for their future in Isseena, and Fang had daringly leaned over to kiss Vanille's cheek while still driving. She'd laughed as she was swatted away, and she'd turned her attention back to the road ahead

A handful of hours later, Fang and Vanille had stood outside their new house on the edge of Isseena. It was a good location - private, quiet, and it overlooked a cliff, a lake and Isseena's seemingly endless mountain forests. 

Their lives were perfect, Fang would remember thinking as she followed Vanille inside their home. 

That little voice inside her head kept at her, though. It really had been too good to last.

###

Almost a month after they'd moved to Isseena, Fang awoke in the early hours of the morning with a sudden and sickening jolt. She rolled onto her side, coughing and gasping for air as she stared around herself wildly. She'd - she'd awoken outside and not in her bed with Vanille. _How_ had she gotten outside? Where the hell was she?

She paused, listening. She could hear water, which meant... The lake? Fang cast her mind backwards desperately as she blindly struggled to push herself up, but her body wasn't cooperating and neither, it seemed, was her memory. Everything felt numb and blank, and she could not remember how she'd gotten outside, let alone all the way to Lake Isseena. 

Fang's entire body felt deathly cold and her eye struggled to resolve detail in the pre-dawn light. Her head swam, and Etro her shoulder. With a jerky motion, Fang's frozen, mud-streaked hand found her left shoulder. Her breath hissed from between her clenched teeth as white hot pain started up, almost afresh, and it was only then that she felt the throbbing scratches on her face and forearms. 

_I... Was I attacked?_ Fang asked herself, and she clenched her jaw tighter as she pushed herself to a sitting position with a groan. Her clothes were torn and stiff with mud and muck, and having woken up face first in sludge, she seemed to have gotten a lot of it on her face and front. 

Still struggling for breath, Fang slowly climbed to her feet, levering herself up on the nearest tree and catching herself on its low branches when her leg nearly gave out on her. Her muscles felt like jelly, as though she'd run to Oerba and back in the space of a night. Fang supposed that if she'd been tracking a dangerous beast, a bit of physical discomfort wasn't too much of a blow to her pride. 

_Why can't I remember, though?_ Fang asked herself again, shaking her head as she swayed on her feet for a moment. Her head ached something fierce - maybe the thing had given her a knock about the head. That would explain why the details of the fight and the whole day prior felt so Etro-damned fuzzy.

The air felt freezing on her bare skin, and Fang convulsively hugged her arms about herself as she looked up. She had to make her way home before she got any more light-headed, thanks to the way her shoulder had been turned into a chew-toy. The night sky had begun to grow pale as it slowly gave way to dawn, but she could still read the position of the stars to direct her home. 

Her level of exhaustion made what was normally a short trip home a lot longer, and it took her a good half hour to clear the forest by the lake. She'd tripped and fallen into one of the tiny rivers feeding into the lake, and the icy water had soaked her clothing and skin. Irritable and a bit more alert, Fang had taken a moment to clean the mud from her face and hands, before continuing up the sloping forest. 

Vanille was going to kill her for walking on the carpet all sodden, Fang realised around half way up the slope their house rested on, but she was grumpy, exhausted, and could not give a flying fuck about tracking mud inside. Ahead of her, in the rapidly paling light, their house stood quiet, dark and welcoming.

She wondered if she'd be able to sneak in without Vanille waking up and asking where she'd been all night. Stripping off her freezing clothes and slipping into the warm bed beside Vanille sounded like heaven...

Fang was about two dozen paces away from home when she noticed it - and she froze. The door to their home had been partially ripped from its hinges, and even from that distance, Fang could see how the woodwork had been splintered and _broken._ The door gaped open, and all Fang could hear at that moment was a huge roaring sound in her ears as she struggled to make sense of what she was seeing. 

_Vanille._

For a moment, Fang felt almost paralysed in skyrocketing horror. She'd dealt with enough of the nastier wild fauna to know the signs, and it was absolutely essential that she found Vanille before - before -

_Before what?_

It could not be happening - it just couldn't be. Fang kept repeating it like a mantra as she charged into the house, heedless of any lingering danger and focused like a laser on finding Vanille before something horrible happened. 

Fang's desperate, feverish search came to a sudden end as she finally skidded to a halt outside their bathroom. In the poor dawn light, Fang could see that the doorknob had been ripped free, and that the wood had been clawed and scarred by something that had to have been huge. 

There was blood smeared on the white door and the ruined doorframe, thick, coagulated and so very _human_. Fang's body ran cold as she began to breathe in quick, shallow gasps, shaking her head and trying so hard to hold on to the last dregs of hope. She didn't want to think on what the blood, the claw marks and the lack of Vanille could mean. 

She didn't want to accept that this was anything short of a nightmare. 

She wrenched the door open with a strangled cry, and the smell of blood hit her like a solid wall. The world spun before her eyes wildly as she caught sight of more red on the white bathroom tiles - and there was just so _much_ of it. The hunter in Fang coldly observed that losing that much blood almost surely spelled death, no matter who or what the victim was. 

It was all she could do to keep herself upright, and she held onto the ruined door frame so hard that splinters dug and cut into her fingers and palms. She forced herself to look up, to take in the scene. 

Something red, mauled and shredded lay in the bathtub, partially obscured by a blood-streaked shower curtain. Fang staggered back, every cell in her body screaming in abject horror but all of her muscles locked and no sound could escape. It was only as her back hit the wall in the hallway outside the bathroom that she began to suck in deep, sobbing gasps. 

That _something_ in the bathtub was what was left of Vanille, and Fang didn't remember anything after that.

###

The week following was nothing short of grueling, and all the while, it felt like something fundamental had been shattered inside Fang's heart. She had been questioned on the circumstances of the attack - where she was all that night, what she saw, why hadn't she called in the Guardian Corps when she had the chance?

In the quiet of the interrogation rooms, Fang had cobbled together some understanding of the events from the few flashes she had. She remembered snarling, flashing teeth in the dark, and the sound of Vanille's screams. 

Etro, but it would haunt Fang's dreams forever. 

The wound on her shoulder had been tightly wrapped up with cotton bandages, but it still felt raw and hot with every throb of her pulse. Fang didn't ask for painkillers and didn't want them. She needed both the reminder and to keep her sharpest wits about her. The wound - so clearly a bite mark - told her with a certainty that whatever it _had_ been, she'd tried to fend it off when it had attacked Vanille. Her arms and even her face were marred with defensive wounds - perhaps scratches from claws. 

It still hadn't been enough to draw the beast's attention and spare Vanille.

In any case, Fang understood enough to know that she'd pursued the creature, tracking it out through the forest. In the end, she must have hit her head, because she'd passed out. When she'd awoken, her wits had been half addled and her memory shot to pieces. 

None of it _mattered_ though. The Corps could question her all they liked and infer whatever they wanted. It didn't change the fact that Vanille had been murdered by Etro only knew _what_ , and for Fang, there was nothing else left for her. 

Vanille had been her everything - her past, her present, and Fang had wanted so badly for her to be the future, too. Without Vanille there to guide her and support her, she wasn't sure she wanted a future at all. 

Fang stared down at her hands, clenched into fists on the interrogation room's table top. Her knuckles had gone white and her bones had started to ache, but Fang didn't care. 

_Why didn't the bastard take me, too?_ Fang demanded silently, and she forced the hot, aching tears back. _Why did he leave me to face the world without her?_

Fang's memory held no answers for her no matter how she struggled. She swallowed hard, and she felt her shoulders begin to shake as she realised that she would never again see Vanille's brilliant smile. 

_I can't go on without her. I just can't._

###

It was late, when Fang finally dragged herself back from Vanille's funeral to the threadbare hotel room she'd rented out. It seemed to have become a somewhat permanent arrangement. Between all the questioning at the Corps' headquarters, the reporters that were a little too nosy and her own hasty arrangements for... laying Vanille to rest... Fang hadn't had a chance to return to their house overlooking the lake. 

She didn't really want to, either, even if she'd been informed that the blood had been scrubbed away, the doors replaced, most of the scores removed from the walls and the gaps plastered over. If Fang was fair with herself, she wasn't certain she had the courage to go back, not when Vanille would never be there to meet her at the door again.

Fang collapsed on the narrow, squeaky bed, not bothering to shed her rain-soaked clothing. She threw her arm over her eyes, her jaw clenched, her throat burning while silently begging herself not to cry.

In the end, the Corps had agreed with her story. That night, she and Vanille had been attacked by _something_. Fang's missing hours - still scrambled and hazy, even two weeks later - were apparently confirmed by her boss and people at Isseena's pub.

She had taken no joy in the vindication, because it had left the Corps no closer to getting justice. The fact that Fang, with all her vast knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Isseena region, could _not_ identify what manner of creature it had been... the suspicion had been fair, if soul-destroying. If _infuriating._

For that week, she really had wished she'd died, and she'd lost count of how many times and ways she'd considered attempting to join Vanille - the other half of her _soul_ \- in the afterlife. Something had stayed her hand, though she wasn't sure what she had to live for.

She'd watched the casket get lowered into the ground that afternoon. She'd stood alone during the ceremony, surrounded but solitary. She'd ignored the suspicious looks of the Isseena townsfolk with an iron facade, even though she'd felt like she was bleeding inside. 

Fang hadn't even moved when it started to rain.

###

That stark, harrowing grief had morphed, as the days after Vanille's funeral edged on. Somewhere during Fang's restless, sweat-soaked nights of vivid terrors, when all she could see was blood, torn flesh and splintered wood, she'd jerked wide awake. 

Instead of the black, cold, all-encompassing misery she'd felt for days, that choking feeling in her chest had become something else entirely. Helpless, burning anger had risen up - at Isseena for the job. At the Corps for their relentless questioning of her, while they'd let the trail of the monster grow cold. At herself for dragging Vanille to Isseena -

She paced the length of the tiny hotel room like a caged animal. The air felt stifling and hot against her sweaty skin and nightshirt, and she was seized with the fiercest desire to go out and track the bastard down. It was the middle of the night, though, Fang realised. She ran a hand through her tangled hair, breathing hard. She'd have to wait until morning.

_Morning. I'm sick of waiting!_ Fang whirled with a broken curse, slamming her fist right through the thin plaster of the hotel wall. 

Out of breath, Fang stared at her hand, still buried in the wall. It felt as though her whole body couldn't stop trembling. 

Two nights after Vanille had been laid to rest, Fang made a silent promise to the love of her life. That _bastard_ had taken Vanille from her, and with her death, the future might as well have evaporated in smoke. 

It only seemed fair that she took the trouble to return the favour.

###

The anger - hot, harsh and consuming - was what kept Fang going. It filled the awful hollowness in her chest with purpose, her mind narrowing in on her desperate hunt. The idiot Corps investigators had wasted too much time, pointing the finger at her while allowing the real trail to grow cold. 

_Oh, I suppose there were some benefits. They established that I did not attack and partially devour my wife, as if it hadn't been fucking obvious,_ Fang snarled to herself.

At least when she was out in Isseena's forest, looking for any sign of the beast that had taken Vanille's life, she wasn't thinking about the blood smeared and coagulated on the bathroom tiles. When she was exhausting herself by trekking up mountainside after mountainside, she didn't have to remember how Vanille's ribcage had gaped open, didn't have to _see_ the way her jaw had been only partially ripped clear of her face. She didn't have to think about the image of Vanille's entrails, all spread out in the bathtub, shredded and _chewed_ -

Fang caught herself on a low-hanging branch near Lake Isseena, near where she knew she'd lost the beast in her pursuit. Her breath was shallow, shuddering, and it felt as though the tremors and oppressive _panic_ welling up from her stomach would never leave her be.

It took her over ten minutes to get a tremulous hold of herself. It took at least another five to finally be sure enough of her body, before she finally eased her desperate hold of the tree branch.

Even now, it felt as though she couldn't breathe, couldn't _think_ , and that was bad news. If she intended to exact her slow, painful revenge on the creature, she couldn't be like this. Like - like some trembling gorgonopsid cub without its mother! If just the memory of that night rendered her in this state - and no matter what she tried, this was where she inexorably wound up - then how the hell was she going to face the reality?

Fang's throat grew tight, her body going rigid in helpless rage. 

_What good is all my damned knowledge, when this thing is like nothing I've ever seen before?_ Fang demanded of herself, tilting her head back. The afternoon sun gleamed in dappled patches through the forest canopy, and for a few moments, she simply watched the movement of wind through the leaves. 

_It_ was completely outside of Fang's vast experience, but then again, she'd always dealt with the natural Pulsian wildlife. No matter how troublesome or vicious the creatures could be, there had always been a predictability, a natural law to their behaviour that had made dealing with them possible. 

_It_ , on the other hand, was so far beyond Fang's normal understanding that she didn't even know where to begin. Outside of a few faded tracks, she'd found no sign of its ongoing presence in the Isseena region. There was nothing new, nothing that could lead Fang back to its den. 

It was possible the beast had moved on, but then she'd never get her vengeance. 

Maybe she was just exhausted, stressed, or her memories of Vanille and the night of the attack were playing havoc with her head, but she began to wonder. Perhaps she was looking at it in entirely the wrong way. 

_Lindzei's curse,_ Fang though, her grip on her spear tightening convulsively. _It doesn't act on natural law because it's not a part of it at all._

It was cold clarity, and the pieces fell together with a stunning ease. 

Lindzei's curse - that which caused the nightmarish, the unexplained and the supernatural - was all over this. That was why Fang couldn't track it. That was why it had seemingly vanished without a trace. If this was one of Lindzei's monsters, though, then she was entirely out of her depth. 

Fang had had enough encounters with Bhunivelze's hunters to know that trying to fight it alone would end in one way - with her dying in vain. 

She couldn't die. She couldn't go home to Vanille - not yet. 

A gut instinct or a hunch was not enough to go to the Corps with - not after they'd botched their last chance so badly. Nor did she trust just any old Bhunivelze lackey to let her have her revenge the way she _needed_. She wanted someone she might be able to trust, someone she was certain would have her back. 

Someone who saw and _fought_ the impossible on a daily basis. 

The answer was obvious, even if Fang felt a glimmer of guilt that she'd be contacting _her_ so soon after Vanille's murder. Their history - maybes, could haves, what ifs only - hardly mattered though. Only the present mattered. Only the _hunt_ mattered, and Fang nodded slowly to herself. 

For Vanille's memory, for revenge, Fang would have sold her soul to Etro herself. 

With that thought in mind, she took out her comm and dialled an old phone number that she both hoped and dreaded was still active.

###

Lightning darted to the side as Bahamut Fury shrieked and sent another blast of molten hot megaflare in her direction. The near-gelatinous blue fire impacted with a deafening explosion against the rocky outcrop - she'd only just managed to find cover behind it. She hissed half a dozen expletives at the bastard as hot shards of rock and debris rained down on her from above. 

She hastily shook her clothing free of embers, groaning under her breath as the movement sent raw agony through the wide burn on her shoulder. She'd need to apply a healing salve to the burn later - when she wasn't currently Bahamut Fury's only prey for miles around.

Lightning had been tracking the Bahamut curse for the past half year, and she'd fought numerous iterations of the dragon in that time. Bahamut Zero, Sin, Jet, X - the list of those people infected by the curse following its invocation had been staggering, but it had also given her a lot of time to study the recurring attributes and weaknesses. 

Even when Bahamut Fury's host had 'hatched' a lot earlier than she'd expected - she'd rather hoped to have ended the matter long before that occurred - she hadn't really thought to modify her approach. She'd told Noel to wait in the town at the base of the mountain, and scaled it alone.

Now, of course, she was paying the price for her foolish complacency - Lindzei had certainly dialled it up to eleven with this particular iteration of Bahamut. 

As if trying to be true to its namesake, Bahamut Fury roared from beyond the outcrop. The ground seemed to quake at the force of its defiance. Hissing under her breath in frustration, Lightning hunkered in tighter behind the rock slab, her mind racing. What did she have? 

_Elemental rounds, my bracers, grenades, Hyper Mighty G, Underdog's Chance, Aegisol and Fortisol combo -_ Lightning bit off another expletive as she heard the unmistakable sound of huge wings unfurling. _Damnit, just give me a little longer and we'll dance all you want._

Finally out of time, Lightning dashed out from behind her cover as Bahamut Fury took flight with one massive sweep of its wings. She couldn't let this one slip away to wreak the same sort of havoc that had brought Bahamut Zero to the notice of Bunivelze's Hunters, so she switched her blazefire saber to gun mode and opened fire. 

The scattering of blizzard-imbued shots did little but raise a little ice on the dragon's golden scales and angular wings, but it placed the monster's attention firmly back on her. Surprising as Fury's strength had been, even so soon after hatching, Lightning was more than able to take it down.

_Probably **not** right here, though._

Ducking another burst of Bahamut Fury's fire, Lightning pivoted and began to run down the steep, rocky slope of Mount Aelsii. Her breath coming in sharp puffs of mist, she dared sneak a look over her shoulder. There it was, shining brilliant gold against the frozen blue sky, fearsome and deadly - and displaying the exact same behaviour that had ended all the other dragons.

In spite of the pain in her shoulder, Lightning smirked. 

She hit the first burst of alpine tree cover then. Skidding to the side and zigzagging through the narrow patch of trees, she turned just in time to see Bahamut Fury plough straight through the small trees. They broke apart under the force of the dragon's flight as though they were no more than matchsticks, and Lightning threw up her arm just in time to shield her eyes from the hail of splinters. 

Without missing a beat, Lightning dispensed a red fang from the compartments on her bracers and hurled it. The fang ignited on impact with Bahamut Fury's back, and the resulting bellow of pain was enough to cause the ground to tremble. 

She turned and sprinted again, almost sliding down the rocky slope as she headed for the next, far denser band of trees. She immediately slowed to a slow walk, the hair on the back of her neck prickling as she tried to slip under Bahamut Fury's nose. She could hear the dragon crashing through the trees some fifty feet to her left, and she could smell smoke as it tried to burn her out with dripping blue fire.

The trees in this patch were a lot older and a lot denser - and the opportunity for a surprise attack wasn't one that Lightning was about to throw away. 

That, of course, was when her comm went off. The ringtone was horrifyingly loud against the silence of the alpine forest, and Lightning could practically hear the moment that Bahamut Fury pinpointed her location. 

Swearing at both herself and the idiot trying to call her on a job, Lightning chose to ignore the caller and started to run down the slope again. She wove through the trees at a breakneck pace while the dragon blundered after her, her breath coming hard. A surprise attack was now rather laughably out of the question, and -

Lightning hissed as the comm went off a second time, deftly eliminating any ground she'd gained. 

_What the hell?_ she demanded silently. She skidded behind another band of large trees, and she drew the still-ringing comm out of her singed jacket pocket. Her breath caught a little when she read the caller ID, and suddenly, she wasn't so angry.

_Fang?_ Lightning asked herself, scarcely able to believe it. To say she was shocked would have been sorry understatement. She could hear Bahamut Fury crashing through the trees behind her, still tracking her on the noise the comm was making. Taking a deep breath, Lightning answered the call and began to sprint again.

"Fang, I'm glad to hear from you, but you could have called at a better-"

_"I didn't know who else to call."_ Fang's voice was quiet on the other end of the line, and in the chaos of the fight with Bahamut Fury, Lightning was only barely able to make out her words. 

Lightning skidded behind a small outcropping of rock, activating her left bracer. A small canister thumped down into the palm of her hand, and she smiled slightly. Heavenly wrath - her favourite.

_"I need you to come to Isseena. It's..."_

"Isseena?" She twitched, her eyebrows drawing sharply down. Fang hadn't mentioned that she was moving, but then again, Lightning hadn't exactly been invited to the wedding. "What the hell are you doing in Isseena? Aren't you meant to be in Oerba?"

On the last word, Lightning pivoted sharply and lobbed the heavenly wrath right in Bahamut Fury's armoured face. She shielded her eyes as the canister exploded in a roar of unleashed thundaga magic. The force of the blast sent Bahamut Fury crashing back through the forest, buying her valuable time. She launched herself into another headlong sprint, determined to make the most of it.

Fang was _meant_ to be in Oerba, with Vanille - just the way she wanted. What had changed? Isseena had recently come up on the radar as a potential area of investigation, so if Fang was there....

_"I moved."_ There was a tautness to Fang's voice that Lightning caught, even in spite of her obvious distraction. 

Something had happened. 

"Fang -" Lightning started, but she heard Fang take a ragged breath. 

_"I need someone out here. Someone like _you_. It's - it's important."_

Lightning looked over her unburned shoulder again, her eyes narrowing as she caught a roar of rage from behind her. She shifted her weapon to close combat mode, activating the runes running down the length of the blade and charging it with magic.

To Fang, Lightning's response was simple. "I'm in. I'll give you a call later for the specifics."

She couldn't help but notice that Fang didn't bother to say goodbye when she hung up.

###

Lightning ended the call with Raines with a sigh, now even more troubled by the rumours coming from the Isseena region. It had taken some quick talking to convince him to pursue the case for her, and even then, Raines had said Nabaat had not been happy. 

She leaned back in her chair, listening to the ambient sounds of the Aelsii pub but not really paying attention. If Nabaat had been pursuing the case for her team, that meant there was far more than rumours or supposition to the case. Raines had said that he'd try to get Nabaat's preparatory notes from her, but Lightning wasn't about to wait around for the paperwork to go through.

Fang had called her, in spite of the... _tension_ that Lightning had been convinced had ended their friendship. She'd never blamed Fang for how it had gone down - she held herself responsible, really - but whatever it was, it had to have been major enough to override any of her old friend's reservations in contacting her.

_What does Vanille think of it?_ Lightning asked herself, toying moodily with the warm dragonstone in her palm. _Why **me** , of all the hunters that might have picked up the case?_

The table Lightning had been sitting at jostled, and she pulled herself out of her thoughtful reverie long enough to glance up at her hunting partner, Noel. She nodded at him as he took the seat opposite her, but didn't say anything. Instead, she opened her gloved hand, letting him see the dragonstone she'd liberated from Bahamut Fury's body.

The stones were how their target was spreading the Bahamut curse - he'd plant the stone in someone's body, and it would gestate. It would then be a simple matter of time before that victim became their target's pawn. The stones were the cause of the mutation, and they served as somewhat as a 'proof of kill' for the Hunters.

"I was going to ask how it went, but I think I have an idea." Noel reached forward and accepted the dragonstone from Lightning. He held the gem up at eye level to examine for a few moments. "Heard you went to visit the med clinic first. Any reason you didn't call?"

Noel's eyes strayed to the bandages wrapping Lightning's shoulder, visible through her shirt. He didn't look happy, and Lightning supposed he had good reason.

"Fury got the drop on me. We've both had worse," Lightning pointed out, taking a sip of her neglected drink. "You wouldn't have had time to make it up the mountain to be of use."

"Fine. I don't see why you had to go alone on the first place." Noel sighed, leaning forward. "At least my digging around the markets today got us a lead. I think Caius is going back to Paddra, which means-"

"Noel," Lightning cut in, raising a hand to stay his flood of words. "I'm not sure I can follow him just yet, much as I want to."

Noel frowned, his surprise - and frustration - evident in his eyes. "What's so important that you'd drop the Bahamut case? We're so close to catching Caius, and -"

"I know what this case means to you." Lightning kept her voice level. She really understood where Noel was coming from - she'd have been mad, too. "I have something I need to do."

Noel looked to the side, his hand clenching into a fist. He shook his head. "Light, what is it? Help me _understand_."

Lightning snorted under her breath. Noel had been her partner for just under six months - they'd started working in tandem on the Bahamut case when it first caught her attention, and they'd formalised the arrangement with Cid. After all, two hunters were better than one. 

On the whole, it had worked out well for them both - he matched her in her obsession with defeating Lindzei's curse, and she could well empathise with his desire to protect.

"You don't need to worry. This... whatever it is, I need to take care of it." Lightning sighed, knowing she owed him a better answer than that, but how else was she meant to explain it? "After that, we resume the Bahamut case and we take care of Caius."

"Then we go together. We're meant to be partners, Lightning." Noel's jaw tightened, even if he had attempted to relax his posture. "I promised Serah that I'd watch your back, and you haven't exactly made at an easy promise to fulfil."

_Bringing Serah into the argument,_ Lightning noted with a mild irritation. _He's been taking notes from Snow._

"Part of being _partners_ is knowing when to back off." Lightning's voice was sharp, and she didn't flinch as he met her eyes angrily. The anger she could handle - the disappointment, not so much. She pinched the bridge of her nose, unwilling to concede, but she knew she had to give him something. "I need you to report back to HQ. You take the dragonstone to Raines for storage, and then we'll talk."

"So I get to track you all across Gran Pulse on some sort of wild goose chase?" Noel asked, his expression as disbelieving as his tone. 

"Don't be absurd. I'm going to Isseena." Now that she'd given him that much, Lightning ran the risk of him deciding to tag along of his own accord. 

_Fantastic._

"Isseena?" Noel frowned, his frustration with her fading into something more like worry. Lightning leaned back in her chair, watching him think. He'd heard the stories, too. "What is it you -"

"I don't know," Lightning said slowly. "A... friend is calling in a favour. She says it's my brand of trouble."

"...all right." Noel finally nodded. Apparently _that_ concession was all he needed, and his stormy expression cleared a little. "I know you'll contact me if things go sour."

His voice was serious, but then, he always was the over-protective type, even with those who scarcely needed it. As much as it would pain him to hear it, he was a bit like Snow in that respect.

Lightning ignored the unsubtle jab, watching him stow the dragonstone within his side pouch. "We'll go our separate ways in the morning. No point in hanging around this town."

"I suppose not, much of a rest as you probably need." His eyes flickered over to the bandages again, just quickly. His jaw grew a little tight. "Just, be careful. Serah is going to kill me if I let you get hurt, so at least give me that much reassurance."

Lightning crossed her arms and felt a reluctant smile touch her lips. "We'll be in touch, and at the very least, I'll be speaking with Hope about what info we have."

"I guess it is Isseena, and it's not like the whole place has gone post-apocalyptic portal on us." Noel shifted his shoulders, answering her smile with one of his own. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"And now you've doomed me," Lightning said with a soft laugh, before pushing her chair back and rising to her feet. She hissed as the burn on her shoulder ached under all the healing salve the med bay had treated it with - at this rate, it'd be a week before it had healed over. "I'm going to go restock on supplies. Try not to make trouble for once."

Noel just grinned up at her and motioned to the man behind the bar for a drink.

**Author's Note:**

> Let's not pretend it's not _entirely_ obvious where this is going, but you know what they say - it's not the destination that counts, but the journey. There is a major dearth of fic in which Fang has a role like this, when in reality she is actually quite a serious and damaged character.


End file.
